Mekbouba - as good tasting as it is funny to say

Tonight I'm making a big pot of mekbouba! My readership is still too small for me to be making assumptions such as "anyone will know what mekbouba is", but I can't help but be excited about this dish and punctuate every other line with exclamation points!!!

It's very good, very easy and very slow cooking.

Ingredients:

10 roma tomatoes or 6 of any larger variety of tomato
4-6 green peppers
2-4 red peppers
1 cubana hot pepper (the long, thin, dark green, hot peppers) or harissa (Optional)
olive oil about 1/3 of a cup
salt/pepper to taste
10 large cloves of garlic

Ok, so the thing to remember about this salad/dish is that the quantities of ingredients are pretty unimportant. You can really vary things and still end up with a perfectly good mekbouba. Seriously...if red peppers are on sale, then add more. If they're too expensive, then maybe just use one. Before we begin, here are a couple important things to know about mekbouba:

1. It's 100% Tunisian
2. My grandmother makes it best
3. It's full of yummy garlic
4. It's a tomato-based 'spread'/salad that's to be eaten cold or at room temperature and is best when shmeared on bread.
5. You can't entirely omit the oil...you really do need it
6. You can remove some of the oil before serving the salad

Ok, so this recipe is very easy, here are the steps:

1. Wash and cut up the tomatoes in quarters, then the peppers into chunky cubes (maybe one inch squares...but doesn't matter)
2. Peel garlic and cup into large chunks (cut each clove in half or in thirds)
3. Mix garlic, tomatoes and peppers in a pot and add olive oil, salt and pepper and then toss everything.
4. Turn element onto medium-high until the COVERED pot starts to boil, the veggies sweat and you get a soupy, watery mix in the pot. Once this occurs, give it about 5-10 minutes to boil like this, then turn the stove down to minimum/low and UNCOVER the pot.
5. Allow entire mixture to simmer for as long as necessary for it to reduce approximately 80%. Stir the pot 'gently' a few times while it's cooking.
6. When it's done, remove from heat, allow to cool and serve with slices of fresh bread.

If you begin with a massive stock pot full of veggies, you'll end up with about 3 cups of mekbouba. Not the most efficient salad...I know. When I make a huge pot of this, it usually takes about 5-6 hours of low simmering before it's ready. You're really looking for about 90% of the moisture to be gone. However, if you make a smaller batch, then your simmering time might be a lot less. You should definitely watch the mekbouba to see when it's ready.

Note: Mekbouba can easily keep for 7-10 days in the fridge when stored in an airtight container. I seriously doubt it will ever last that long, though.

Just a recap of the steps:
1. Cut all veggies and garlic into large chunks
2. Throw into pot with olive oil and seasonings
3. Simmer UNCOVERED several hours until salad has reduced almost entirely and all liquid has evaporated.

That's it!